A Busy But Wonderful Life...

Though it has been quite sometime since our last post on here (over two years) we are still homesteading and doing our thing. We do have a Facebook page  now so you can always keep up with us on there, but we're going to try to keep the blog updated for now on as well. 

So I am sure your dying to know what in the world have we been up to in the past two years?! Well here's what's been going on and of course an update on all the animals!

First and foremost we welcomed our second child, a sweet baby boy (LS) into the world on January 2014 so that's been one big reason for our absence on here.

Also while we are on the topic of kids here is an update photo of our two precious little ones! LS is now 14 months and LM is almost 3 years old!

Now moving on to whats been going on with our homestead....

Well one of our last post was about the garden so here is an up to date picture of that, which may surprise you, but I will explain.

Like most this time of year we are preparing our garden for new crops to be planted, but particularly this year we are redoing some of our raised beds and adding more height. Last year our garden did fine in some parts but because of a very large tree near by sucking up all the water around one side of our garden did not thrive as well as the other. Recently we removed the tree so we are hoping to have more success this year. Also this is just one side of the garden shown above but the other side looks quite the same. 

Here are some more pictures of what's going on inside the garden so far this year and also what has not yet made it into the garden.

Above is a picture of our strawberries doing well as always. We are now just looking for a way for them to grow somewhat off the ground to prevent from rotting by sitting on the ground.

Here is a picture of our favorite veggie, asparagus doing equally as well!

Recently we built a little green house to keep our plants in until we move them to garden. So far we have Kale, Broccoli, Squash (two different types), Zucchini, Cantaloupe, Sweet pepper and Cucumber started.

Now on to what you've all be waiting for the animals....

Here are some of our Guineas. They are all this color (pearl) except one that is white.

These are our chickens and here are the different kinds we currently have.

This is our one special breed we received in an order that came from Mcmurray Hatchery

which is typically where we order our chickens from. If you haven't used them and are looking for a reliable company to order your chicks from this is the place to use.

Back to the Rooster above....He is a Buff Cochin and his name is fluffy. FYI we didn't know he was a rooster before we named him. He is feather footed, as you can see and a beautiful breed.

These here are Ol Fluffs offspring which are two roosters of course that were breed with our last Red Star before she passed. So they are Red Stars and Buff Cochins.

The hens breeds we have now are some Speckled Sussex and Buff Orpingtons. Both are beautiful breeds but I tend to favor the Red Stars which we will hopefully have some of soon once we place our spring order to the hatchery.

 This is our one and only Bourbon Red Turkey hen sitting on chicken eggs. She isn't one of our smartest birds. She has yet to have any eggs hatch.

We also have a pair of breeding Khaki Campbells which are very entertaining, especially when playing in their pool. We are hoping to have ducklings from them hatch later this week so be looking for a post on those.


Talking about hatching babies these recently hatched last week and though we are not 100% sure what breed they are yet we are pretty confident the all yellow one is Buff Cochin breed with Buff Orpington and the other two, Red Star/Buff Cochin breed with Buff Orpington. So we shall see what we get when their feathers start to come in. So far we have 2 feather footed and one without.

Now moving on to the goats we currently have..... 

The top picture is the oldest goat on the farm, Pebbles. If you've read our previous post she is one of the first goats we purchased and when we got her we were told she may be pregnant and sure enough a couple months later she birthed these two baby girls. Wilma is on the left and is identical to her Momma. Then of course the bottom right is her other baby, Betty.

The other goats we have here are...

Jack and Jill which are brother and sister. Like all our goat here they are Nigerian Dwarfs.

Our newest additions are strictly for food purposes but they sure are cute to look at, for now anyways!

 These are our two female American Guinea Hogs that will be with us until about November and after that they will be remembered every time we sit down to have some of our delicious home raised pork.

On a not so happy note we recently lost our oldest animal family member, Drake. Our sweet 13 year old black lab passed away due to heart failure two weeks ago. 

Not only was this hard on all of us, (my husband especially since he had Drake the entire 13 yrs) I can only imagine it has been the hardest for our other chocolate lab, Bristol that has been with him her entire life. She has never known life as a only dog, but thankfully she has handled it like a champ and of course we have been spending lots of extra time with her to help her cope. We have considered getting her another companion but that is a whole other issue. So we will see what happens.

Well I think that about covers all that been going on here at Lees Reach. 

Oh, except one more thing.....

We are overjoyed to announce we will be welcoming our third child into the world in September of this year!!!!

More new additions

So I have been looking for some Turkeys for a long time. I have debated hatching eggs or buying chicks. The chicks were expensive from the hatchery and I think you have to buy 30 at a time. The eggs were a better deal but I have never hatched eggs and I didn't have an incubator(I do now....more on that another day.) This past weekend the was an animal sale at Gilmanor Farms. They have this twice a year. We went in the spring but didn't see anything we needed. This time was different. We were looking for a kid goat and the Turkeys. I was specifically looking for bourbon reds. I found some turkeys that were 5 months old. The lady selling them offered a deal if I took all 5 she had so of course I did.

For now they are in the Barn Tractor until I can build a house for them.

Here are the bantams again. They are still hanging out in the old guinea tractor. I tried letting them out the other day but the dogs were way too interested in them. I don't know why they couldn't care less about the guineas or the other chickens. We will keep working at it.

So since we didn't find any goats we wanted at the sale we went online when we got home. We search and called everywhere but never did find what we were really looking for. We wanted something 6 months or less that way a Pygmy or dwarf. I ended up calling a local petting zoo that has tons of goats. They had some ranging from 6 months and up. We decided to pick based on looks and ended up with the Nigerian Dwarfs.

They are very pretty but not so comfortable with us yet. We have been slowly working with them to get them used to us. It doesn't help that the dogs think they are dogs too and want to play with them through the fence. I took the old dog kennel that was 10x20 that the guineas have been staying in and turned it into 2 10x10 kennels. The guineas get half and the goats get half until I can build them a play yard in the woods.

It has also been about 2 weeks now of letting the guineas out everyday and so far I not lost any and they all have returned to their pen every night. It may take a little corralling but they make it back pretty easily.

Garden Update

Next year I will do things different.....I'll probably say that every year. Between the squirrels and the weeds it has been an interesting garden. Despite having 42 tomato plants I haven't picked a tomato in a month. They get to them way before they get red. 

Actually most of that green is the garden but around the watermelons and the pumpkins there is a lot of tall grass. The garden is just too thick to get a tiller in there anymore.

 The sunflowers have done great. I got two cabbage heads out of the 14 or so I planted. Bugs got to most of them.

Ok so I may have been a little of on my planting date for the pumpkins........We have orange pumpkins in August. Maybe if we are lucky some will still be around in October. I doubt it.

The watermelons are doing great too I just hope the squirrels don't find the ripe ones before I do. 

Here is my harvest from last night. I finally got some green beans. I was really late planting then as I was with everything else. Some of my zucchinis got a little big but oh well. I think the cucumbers are about done. I did get enough to make about 9 jars of dill pickle spears and chips though.

I finally moved the Guineas into the old dog kennel. They have ALOT more room now so I'm sure they are happy. I have set up a bunch of high and low perches for them so they can build up their wings before I let them out.

Here is Tab with Bristol and Drake going for a golf cart ride.

Chicken and Dog Update

OK. So were are finally settled in at the Tabs parents. We got the chickens and their coop moved and the dogs set up in a 10x20 kennel, they still come in at night though. I took an old dog house my dad had that he never used and set that up for them. This property is sort of set up on top of a hill so it can get pretty windy. They have a tarp across half of the kennel top and down the back side to provide some wind protection. I really don't like keeping them in there but so far they seem to like it just fine. I've got pine needles packed around the sides and underneath for insulation. I put a wireless thermometer inside the dog house and I have a wireless weather station set up at the dog kennel. I can monitor the temp inside the dog house and outside weather conditions. It was warm today but earlier this morning there was a 10 degree difference inside the dog house. Most days when its been cold it has still been about 5 degrees warmer in there. I think its probably warmer than that to them though because they have been getting in the dog house together. The chicken coop is pretty much set up the same as it was at our old house. I am still having a problem with one of the hens sleeping and pooping in one of the nesting boxes. I have tried blocking it off and nothing seems to work. It stinks because I keep getting poopy eggs out of that box. Even with the colder weather and short days I have still been getting 4 to 5 eggs a day.

Now that we are out of the neighborhood we were in we are able to let our chickens free range when we are home during the day. We still have to keep an eye out for the random roaming dog or the hawks but so far no issues.

This setup if working out pretty good so far... We will have to see how the tarp handles snow if we ever get any.

You can see their guinea pen in the trees a little in this one. Also now that Roostie has been gone for a while that hen on the right is the boss and sure enough today she tried to peck at me. At least the hens don't hurt. Also if you remember a while back I said I was working on teaching the dogs not to eat the chickens. Well today the dogs and I were in the yard throwing the ball and playing. After a while they laid down and chewed on some bones. While they were resting one of the chickens came over to check them out and walked right up to their faces and all around them and they didn't ever react to the chickens so I guess that means the training is going good.

and a final sunset picture across the field.

Also we got our building permit finally last week so we should begin clearing any day now.....

And some even bigger news coming next week.............